[Leica] Leica M9P or M9.2 or M10

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Strangely, I find myself agreeing with Mark. Leica cameras are tools, not
religious icons. (Although some on the LUG treat them as objects of
veneration.) If you are a professional photographer, not a collector or a
speculator, and you feel that a $7000 camera improves the marketability of
your pictures, then you will spring for a new and better version when one
becomes available. The price is no object if the tool pays for itself in a
short time. I paid over $7000 for a Wang desktop computer (remember those?)
30 years ago to facilitate a research project that netted me enough profit
to send my kids to Ivy league colleges.


But I do fault Leica for abandoning the upgrading philosophy that served
them well in the past. Why should any photographer have to buy an entirely
new camera to get an improved sensor or microprocessor? The really expensive
parts of the camera, the body, the rangefinder, the viewfinder, and most of
the internal mechanisms remain unchanged. The thing that made the LTM and M
film cameras live so long and prosper was the fact that  improved films
could be used in any of the old cameras. In effect you had an updated
photographic instrument every time Kodak or Agfa released a new emulsion.
Even the older cameras could be factory upgraded to incorporate all the
features of the later models in the same series.


I would have liked Leica to design a modular digital M camera where packages
of components could have been easily replaced. Failing that, I would have
appreciated a digital back for the M and CL cameras. It worked for the R
series. Other companies have done it - but perhaps it was beyond the
expertise of the Leica gnomes at Solms. But of course you don't sell Rolls
Royces to the masses.


Larry Z


- - - - - - -

Mark writes:

The M9 is a successful camera both from a picture taking as well as

marketing angle. But its been a few years and the next sensor they pick to

use will no doubt have advantages over the present one. That is a natural

progression which has just got to happen. Its history which just hasn't

gotten around to happening yet. And this will no doubt inflame the emotions

of present M9 useers who sensor their investment in danger and will insist

that the present M9 should be stuck in time for a decade like an M3 or an

m4.  But digital time marches on faster than you'd ever expect it and the

sensor the M9 comes in now will someday not even be made any more. The new

one will have higher ISO's and better this and better than. Proably a few

more mp's thrown in not that it really needs it.

The sensor in the M9 now is the first sensor choice Leica has ever made for

a full frame camera. Its first out. The second one down the line is going to

be of severe interest. And might change the game a little bit.


Mark